


Sharpe's Friend

by Sharpiefan



Category: Sharpe - All Media Types, Sharpe Series - Bernard Cornwell
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-02
Updated: 2010-09-02
Packaged: 2017-12-05 00:07:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/716617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sharpiefan/pseuds/Sharpiefan





	Sharpe's Friend

**Spoiler:** _Sharpe's Tiger_  
[](http://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=aos_challenge)[](http://www.dreamwidth.org/profile?user=aos_challenge) **aos_challenge** **prompt:** Queues  
 **Rating:** 12  
 **Pairing/Characters:** Sharpe, Lawford

Lawford kept sneaking glances at Sharpe, envying his easy confidence and soldier’s ability, despite his relaxed, unkempt, unsoldierly appearance.

Sharpe had pulled his hair out of its queue before they got anywhere near Seringapatam, and had washed the flour-and-water paste out as soon as possible after arriving. All Lawford himself had done was wash the paste out; he’d asked Sharpe to retie his own queue. The ranker had responded with a look of disbelief but had done it.

Lawford felt that if he were to understand Sharpe, he would have to experience the same life as Sharpe. Or as near to it as he could get, here. It seemed, however, as though Sharpe was revelling in the lack of discipline offered here, while Lawford imposed more discipline on himself than he had ever laboured under back with the Army.

It wasn’t truly a level field, however. Both of them knew that Lawford was Sharpe’s superior, although they both forced that knowledge down, ignoring it until Lawford said or did something that made them conscious all over again of the gulf that stretched between them.

And at the moment, that gulf was symbolised by their different reactions to wearing a queue. Sharpe’s sense of freedom from the Army showed itself in the golden hair that he allowed to spill over his collar, although he hadn’t quite plucked up enough courage to have it cut.

Lawford’s self-discipline asserted itself every time he put his hand up to feel the leather binding around his own queue. Sharpe had been bemused by the fact that the disguised Lieutenant had pulled the binding off in order to wash out the flour-and-water paste Sharpe had caked onto his head not twenty-four hours earlier, yet had requested that Sharpe redo the queue once his hair was dry.

Sharpe had rejected everything about the Army, starting with throwing his stock into some bushes that first night ‘on the run’. He’d done it deliberately, with not a second’s thought. It had taken him longer to fumble the leather wrapping from his queue, but for some reason, he shoved that into his pocket instead of letting it join his stock in the bushes they’d passed on the way here. Lawford hadn’t said anything at the time. He didn’t think Sharpe had realised he’d noticed, but Lawford held onto the memory as a token of Sharpe’s true allegiance: he wanted to return to the army.

Lawford knew that Sharpe wasn’t finding it easy covering for his own mistakes and inexperience. Several times Sharpe had accused him of barely knowing one end of a musket from the other, before taking the gun from him and patiently showing him – again! – how to strip it down and clean it.

It had hurt as well, that first time when Sharpe had taken all his assumptions of respect and deference and swiftly torn them to shreds. Of course he knew the importance of Sharpe not calling him ‘sir’, but it had stung the first time the Private had deliberately omitted the honorific.

He wondered whether Sharpe would have shown the same patience if Lawford had been a ranker, and thought back to what he little he knew of the man from the times he’d seen him in the past few months. He was startled to realise that he’d never really shown that much interest in Sharpe’s interactions with the other rank-and-file soldiers, he’d been too busy watching Sharpe himself.

As he was doing now. They were in the barracks room, both supposedly cleaning their muskets from the time spent on the range that morning. Sharpe was wearing only a purple tiger-striped tunic; he’d even eschewed the white uniform trousers along with his shirt and jacket, seemingly desperate to remove all traces of the British Army from his person. Although there was that leather binding from his queue… Sharpe had sneaked it under his pillow, as though he were ashamed to admit there was something binding him to the Army and its discipline.

It hadn’t seemed to be a conscious act, however. Lawford only knew about its presence because he’d tried to rearrange the pillows one night and had pulled it out, wondering what it was. He’d recalled Sharpe’s words: _“When we get back to the bloody army, I promise you I’ll pretend this never happened, and I’ll salute you until my bloody arm drops off, but not now, and not until you and me get out of this nonsense alive.”_ The strip of leather had seemed to represent to Sharpe the fact he had made a promise to return to the oppression of the Army, for that was how it must seem to the soldier. After all, he had been flogged.

Lawford watched Sharpe fidget, trying to find a less painful position. The heat wasn’t helping his back to heal, and Lawford wasn’t quite sure what tied Sharpe to an army that had flogged him. Friendship, maybe. He knew Sharpe had close friends that he’d left behind to come on this madcap mission. He watched Sharpe pull his hair to one side and suddenly knew what to do. He leaned across the bed and pulled Sharpe’s queue leather out from its hiding place.

“Here, let me put your hair up,” he said. “It’ll be cooler that way.”

Sharpe looked up with a doubtful expression before sighing and pushing the musket away. “You sure it’ll help, Bill?”

Lawford smiled. “No harm in trying, is there?”

Sharpe moved over to let Lawford try his hairdressing skills. Yes, there would always be a gulf between them, but Lawford would be proud to admit that he was friends with a ranker, Sharpe’s friend.

Yes, this happens with me... you hear nothing from me for ages, then I update twice in as many days. ;D


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